Could a Y. Pestis pandemic happen again?
I think China has seen most of the signs of the apocalypse this year. Plague, in multiple forms, locust swarms, massive floods.Chinese city locks down a neighbourhood and issues epidemic warnings for PLAGUE after reporting a case of death from the disease
A Chinese city has locked down a neighbourhood and issued level-three epidemic warnings for plague after one of its residents died of the disease, according to a government notice.
The city of Baotou in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region said the person had contracted the enteric plague, one of the four forms of plague which attacks a person's digestive system.
The unidentified individual died on Sunday after suffering circulatory system failure, the Baotou Health Committee said in a statement on Thursday. A herdsman from Bayan Nur in Inner Mongolia was confirmed on July 4 to have the disease, known as the 'Black Death' in the Middle Ages.
The latest fatality occurred at the Suji Estate at the town of Shibao in Darhan Muminggan United Banner near the Chinese border with Mongolia, the statement announced. Officials have ordered the city to enter a precautionary warning period, which is set to last from today till the end of the year.
The city of Baotou in China's Inner Mongolia said the person had contracted the enteric plague, one of the four forms of plague which attacks a person's digestive system
Authorities have isolated nine people who had had close contact with the deceased, as well as their respective close contacts which amounted to 26. All of the 35 quarantined residents have been sent to isolation camps, given precautionary drugs and taken polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which detect the bacterium that causes plague.
None of them had a fever, and all their test results were negative, the statement said. Officials locked down Suji Estate to prevent the spread of the disease. The government admitted that the city was facing a potential epidemic of plague among humans.
Authorities said they had carried out door-to-door health checks for the locals and increased the intensity of anti-epidemic education. They added that workers were thoroughly disinfecting the home of the deceased as well as the surrounding farmhouses daily. Officials have also launched a campaign to kill fleas and rodents. None of the residents in Suji had a fever or tested positive for plague, the notice said.
Enteric plague, also known as the pharyngeal plague, can arise as a result of exposure to infectious aerosols or by ingestion of infected meat. It is less common than the bubonic plague, one of the most devastating diseases in history, or the pneumonic plague, a severe lung infection. The other type of plague, the septicemic plague, affects a person's blood systems.
.
I think even with antibiotic treatment the disease is much more deadly than Covid, which would be difficult to describe as 'manageable'.Thank goodness for antibiotics, which have turned a gruesome death sentence into a painful but manageable disease — at least in the United States where people can readily get antibiotic therapy for the bacteria injected by fleas who feed on people after feeding on plague-infected rodents.
I think even with antibiotic treatment the disease is much more deadly than Covid, which would be difficult to describe as 'manageable'.